'Hum do hamare do’, Rahul Gandhi accuses govt of ‘destroying ‘mandis’ and promoting hoarding to benefit corporate friends’

Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, February 11

In a stinging attack against the Narendra Modi government, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused it of “destroying ‘mandis’ and promoting hoarding to benefit a couple of corporate friends” all the while spinning around an old family planning slogan, “hum do hamare do”, to make his point.

“The nation is being run by four people ‘hum do hamare do’,” Gandhi said. 

He did not name anyone saying that everyone knows who he was talking about but his comments resulted in a virtual bedlam in the House with allegations flying against his (Gandhi) family and Union minister Anurag Thakur accusing him of “telling lies” and coming unprepared to speak on Union Budget.   

Participating in what was otherwise a discussion on the Union Budget in Lok Sabha, Gandhi said yesterday Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the Opposition is talking of agitation but not intent and content of farm laws.

“So I thought let me make him happy and talk about content and intent of farm Bills,” he said.

According to the Wayanad MP, “The content of the first law is to finish the ‘mandis’ and its intent is to give one friend the right to have all the crops of India. The content of the second law is to end the essential commodities act and its intent is to help the second friend hoard grains, fruits, vegetables etc. The content of the third law is when a farmer goes before the biggest businessman of India to demand the right price for his crops, he will not be allowed to go to the court.”

The PM has given us three options “of hunger, unemployment and suicide”, he said amid repeated disruptions and requests by Speaker Om Birla, asking him to restrict his speech to the Budget. 

Gandhi did not say their names but Union minister Pralhad Joshi, who raised the point of order and asked him to prove his claims, ended taking the names of the two corporates.  

Gandhi said:  “’Hum do hamare do’....you remember those cute, cuddly faces… Let me tell what will happen when these laws are enacted, small farmers and traders will be wiped out and only ‘hum do hamare do’ will run the country.”

“Rural economy will be destroyed and this country will not be able to generate employment. This is not the first time he (PM Modi) has tried to benefit ‘hum do humare do’, he first did it with demonetisation and then GST,” Gandhi alleged, accusing the government of “breaking the spinal cord of the country”.

“Do not think it is farmers’ agitation, it is the agitation of the entire country. Farmers are showing way to the country which is rising against ‘hum do hamare do’…Let me give you in writing, farmers will not move back an inch, you will have to take back the three laws,” Gandhi warned , also asking the House to maintain silence of two minutes in honour of farmers who died during the agitation. 

On this Speaker Om Birla said the responsibility of running the House is with him.

“Tomorrow someone will get up and say he wants to pay respect to jawans killed on border…or those killed in Uttarakhand tragedy. Let me run the House,” Birla said.

When Gandhi said he will not speak on Budget but only farmers’ issues, Anurag Thakur intervened saying he had hoped a senior leader (like Rahul Gandhi) will know about rules of the House.

“I understand he (Rahul Gandhi) has not prepared his Budget speech. But then some people spend less time in House and also the country...I understand he is going again,” Thakur said, calling the Budget a “hope to build for new, stronger and self-reliant India”.  

“But then some people have always done politics on poverty, which a poor mother’s son has tried to change,” he said.